In this post on colloquial French, I’m picking up from post #325. I rank this post one notch higher on the difficulty level.

I want to re-emphasize that colloquial (spoken) French conversations tend to be much more difficult than

written French

the French we hear on TV (news, documentaries, and even sitcoms which generally tend to use quite simply colloquial French)

monologues (when one person speaks, but not with the intention of anyone speaking back, such as teachers, YouTube videos, speeches, etc.)

That is why I believe these exercises can be useful for your own French learning. They can offer Anglophone Canadians general insight into how spoken conversations sound.

And on that note… Do not think for a minute that European Colloquial French isn’t as equally challenging. Although I don’t have issues understanding our Canadian colloquial French, I sometimes have a heck of a time understanding certain aspects of regional French colloquial conversations in Europe – especially if spoken with a strong accent. European Colloquial French can also be VERY different from written French, European TV French or European monologues

Thus, take your pick — If you are an Anglophone Canadian, you can chose to learn our own colloquial French with all its challenges, or you can chose to learn Europe’s own difficult colloquial French. There likely won’t be much of a difference in difficulty levels (on a colloquial level, they’re two different language systems… so it’s simply a matter of choosing to learn one or the other, whereas on a standardized, television or written level, they are very similar).

But, if you’re an Anglophone Canadian, I would stronglyurge you to learn our own (and your own country’s) colloquial French — and not that of Europe. The opportunities to hear it, practice it, and speak it will be infinitely greater across all of Canada. I cannot see the logic for Anglophone Canadians to try to struggle with European colloquial French when it will be of little use to them.

Keep in mind that by the time you get around to learning colloquial French, you will already know “international” or “Standard” French (that which is written, found in books, heard in television, etc.). It remains the same across the world – thus you’ll already have that global advantage.

However, if for whatever reason you do live in Canada but you chose to learn colloquial European French, I think you’ll find the task will become quite daunting because of the limited opportunities to hear it and practice European colloquialism in Canada (versus our/your own Canadian / Québec colloquial French).

Back to the audio tracts…

I ranked the following colloquial conversation higher on the difficult scale than the last one. The reasons are because

it integrates a greater amount of colloquial (spoken) vocabulary, slang, and expressions than we have seen in the past dialogues,

When you read the English translations below, you will notice that the English translation is just as colloquial (informal & spoken) as the original French.

That might give you an idea of the challenges faced by immigrants who move to English Canada when they have to contend with our colloquial English (a style of English they NEVER learn in school, in books, or from TV).

Thus, like you who wishes to improve your French, they too just have to suck up the challenges posed by colloquialisms in English when they want to improve their English.

Nobody said that learning a language (any language) is easy. Colloquialisms across all languages (be it Canadian French, Mexican Spanish, Beijing Chinese, Berlin German, Lebanese Arabic, France French, etc, etc) are all much more difficult than the book versions of the language.

The key is for you to find ways to have fun with it, to practice it, and to find opportunities to find and listen to other exercises similar to the ones I am presenting you with here.

Bottom line… Enjoy the challenge!!

Let’s dive in. Remember to turn on the closed captions “CC” function at the bottom of the audio tract.